Live updates on Philip Polkinghorne murder trial: Prosecution case enters fifth week

WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT

Today begins the fifth week of the murder trial of Philip Polkinghorne, the Remuera eye surgeon accused of killing his wife Pauline Hanna and staging the crime scene to make it look like a suicide.

The prosecution's case continues, with Detective Andrew Reeves presenting further evidence of what police found on Hanna's phone after her death. Shortly before the trial ended Friday afternoon, he revealed that Hanna had set a reminder for dinner on the evening of April 5 with her husband, who had pronounced her dead that morning.

Polkinghorne claims his wife hanged herself due to the pressure of her role in the Covid vaccine rollout, and defence counsel Ron Mansfield KC is expected to begin calling witnesses to support that claim later this week.

On Friday, Judge Graham Lang addressed the jury following further high-profile testimony from a key witness in the afternoon.

“We are nearing the end of the list of key witnesses,” said the judge.

He said we should wrap up the prosecution's case early this week. The trial is scheduled for six weeks and this week is the fifth.

“As far as I can tell, I think we're still on schedule,” he added, adding that we would know more this week and then gave the jury of nine women and three men some direction.

“There is still a long way to go, so keep an open mind. Don't jump to conclusions at this stage, it's far too early for that. And remember, we are now approaching the climax of the trial, so it is absolutely vital that you do not discuss this case with anyone over the weekend.”

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THE STORY CONTINUES

When a detective seized Polkinghorne's cellphone under a search warrant 11 days after his wife's suspicious death, the Auckland eye surgeon initially volunteered a series of false passwords before police gave up and tried to hack the device themselves.

They were successful, and the wealth of evidence that resulted – including an apparently secret internet search on the subject of strangulation the day after Hanna's death – was presented to the jury as the fourth week of Polkinghorne's sensational murder trial drew to a close.

Prosecutors also revealed a long chain of WhatsApp messages between the surgeon and Sydney escort Madison Ashton immediately after Hanna's death.

“Honestly, I really love you,” Ashton told him three days before his wife's memorial service. “Don't wear a damn bow tie to the funeral. Keep the hat.”

Polkinghorne, 71, is accused of strangling Hanna, 63, in their Remuera home and staging the crime scene to look like a suicide by hanging himself and calling 911 at about 8am on April 5, 2021. The case against Polkinghorne is circumstantial, but prosecutors suspect he may have attacked his wife while high on methamphetamine and during an argument about his exorbitant spending on sex workers or his “double life” with Ashton.

The defendant pleaded not guilty to the charges and his lawyers insisted that Hanna's death was indeed a suicide.

In a police interview hours after emergency responders arrived at the couple's home, Polkinghorne said he and his wife slept in separate rooms that night. He went to bed around 11 p.m. and woke up around 5 a.m., read in bed and then got up for his daily ritual of bringing his wife breakfast in bed, he told police, explaining that he found her body in the entryway of the house shortly afterward.

However, data extracted from his phone suggests that he was awake and on the phone during at least part of the early morning hours.

After turning off his phone at 11:16 p.m. on April 4, the device was unlocked at 1:10 a.m. on April 5 and the encrypted messaging app WhatsApp was accessed, police found. Police were unable to find those messages. Then, at 1:11 a.m., the phone was switched to airplane mode, which disconnects the phone from the cellular network. The Notes app on the phone was accessed from 1:17 a.m. to 1:19 a.m.

The folder containing the photos and videos was accessed several times that morning: from 1:19 a.m. to 1:20 a.m., from 1:45 a.m. to 1:49 a.m., from 2:04 a.m. to 2:05 a.m., and from 2:23 a.m. to 2:42 a.m., before the phone screen turned off at 2:44 a.m. The next time the phone was turned on and unlocked was at 6:46 a.m.

Detective Andrew Reeves led the jury through his examination of Polkinghorne's phone as well as those of Hanna and Ashton.

Records show that shortly after the end of his police interview, the ophthalmologist conducted three identical searches in quick succession: “How to clear iCloud storage.”

The next day, he visited the DuckDuckGo website, an app designed for untraceable web searches. However, because he searched on the website rather than the app, police were able to track the search, which read: “Leg edema following strangulation.” Edema is a clinical term for swelling.

Jurors were given a thick booklet containing the many WhatsApp messages between Polkinghorne and Ashton, which took place at 4.28pm on April 5, 2021, less than 12 hours after Hanna's death was reported. Many of the messages were trivial in nature. But on April 7, Ashton sent a link to a Stuff article titled “Remuera death: More answers expected on Tuesday after post-mortem is complete”.

On April 10, Ashton sent a link to an article in which Polkinghorne spoke with Herald Reporter Carolyne Meng-Yee, who told her that he was being treated as a “suspicious person” by the police. He added: “Our relationship was not good, it was not good at all, it was perfect.” The entire article was reproduced in the evidence booklet.

“Did you give an interview???? Did you use those words!!!!!” Ashton wrote to Polkinghorne, adding: “Suspicious person?!”

Polkinghorne replied, “What do you mean? No chance.”

Ashton offered advice on mourning attire on the 12th and also said she was on a plane. A day later, she sent a photo of a dirty refrigerator and suggested, “Let's establish who does what when it comes to household chores.”

Polkinghorne replied: “I'm good at ironing and shopping, taking out the trash and cooking. I'm very good at judging shakes and freezing bananas. I can water plants, wash dogs, pick up poop. [sic]point out imperfections. I'm a natural at ignoring the obvious, spotting expired milk, and reading the story.”

The next day, Polkinghorne told Ashton he tried to go home “but was thrown out” – apparently an indication that the police were still there.

Ashton then sent several messages on April 15 before Polkinghorne responded at 5:08 p.m.: “Will call in about two hours.”

Ashton responded 50 minutes later.

“I just remembered you were at church. I would have a great day x,” she wrote.

The detective interpreted the message as a typo, which meant it would have been a big day.

Reeves said he found about 150,000 images on Polkinghorne's phone, thousands of which contained pornographic or adult sexual content. Among them were photos of Ashton and four other women – two of whom witnesses previously described as sex workers – to whom Polkinghorne had given nearly $200,000 over a five-year period, according to bank records.

On a USB stick belonging to the defendant, the investigator found several saved images of knotting techniques. One of the things that first caught the investigators' attention when they responded to the 911 call was the looseness of the rope tied around an upstairs balustrade. It was repeatedly referred to as a group of “granny knots.” As a surgeon, Polkinghorne was used to tying much more complicated knots, as the defense pointed out earlier in the trial.

Craig Captain is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has been covering courts in three newsrooms in the United States and New Zealand since 2002.

The Herald will cover the case in a daily podcast, Defendant: The Polkinghorne TrialYou can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotifythrough The front page Feed or wherever you get your podcasts from.